Our Founder

The Rev. Dr. Thomas E. Boomershine is an internationally known
speaker and author in the interpretation of the narratives of the Bible
as oral story in antiquity and in the communication systems of the
digital age. He served as the G. Ernest Thomas Distinguished Professor
of Christianity and Communication at United Theological Seminary in
Dayton, Ohio from 2004-2006 where he also served as Professor of New
Testament from 1979-2000. He now writes and produces multimedia
resources for the interpretation of the Bible in digital culture.

From 2000-2004, Tom served as Dean of the Lumicon Institute
and Vice-President of Lumicon Digital Productions, a division of UMR
Communications in Dallas, Texas. At Lumicon he led a team that
established the first comprehensive program for the education of clergy
and laity in digital culture ministry and produced an integrated series
of oral, written, and digital resources for the full three-year cycle of
the lectionary.

Tom founded the Network of Biblical Storytellers in 1977
and has lectured and led biblical storytelling workshops around the
world. He recently spent a month in Australia making presentations on
digital biblical storytelling and resourcing the NBS community there.

A
leader in the rediscovery of the Gospel as story, his dissertation at
Union Theological Seminary, "Mark the Storyteller," was the first
systematic study of the Gospel narratives as story. As part of his
research and ministry, he began telling the Gospel of Mark in the early
‘70’s. Tom’s book, Story Journey: An Invitation to the Gospel as Storytelling,
is published by Abingdon Press. In 2004 he organized the NBS Seminar, a
group of biblical scholars and biblical storytellers, that is exploring
the implications of biblical storytelling for biblical scholarship.

Tom served as Chief Consultant for Multimedia Translations
for the American Bible Society (1989-1993). He was an Executive Producer
for the award winning ABS video/multimedia program “Out of the Tombs”,
an audiovisual translation of Mark’s story of the Gerasene demoniac. Tom
has been on-camera talent for three segments of the “Disciple” Bible
study series of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship.

Dr. Boomershine is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and
was the founder (1982) and past chair (1982-89) of the Bible in Ancient
and Modern Media group. He has received major grants from the Lilly
Endowment for research in the media history of Christianity and has
participated in several international research conferences on
Christianity and communications. He has published a range of articles
on the Gospels as story, the intersection of biblical studies and
communication, the church in digital culture, and digital biblical
hermeneutics.

While serving inner city multi-ethnic parishes in New York and
Chicago, Tom lived in the heart of the civil rights struggle of the
1960's. During his tenure as Professor of Biblical Studies at New York
Theological Seminary (1972-79), he had an integral role in the
development of the Certificate, STM, and DMin programs for
African-American, Hispanic and Korean pastors in the New York
metropolitan area.

Tom is an ordained elder in the West Ohio Annual Conference
of the United Methodist Church. He is a classical pianist and has been a church
organist since age 12. in his spare time, he loves to play golf and tennis, and to work and
hike with his wife, Amelia. Visit Tom's Website.

Read an interview with Dr. Boomershine about biblical performance criticism from The Biblical Storyteller magazine: